


when it's almost too much for my soul alone

by violentdarlings



Category: Infernal Devices Series - Cassandra Clare, Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Canon What Canon?, Dehumanization, F/M, Mutual Dubious Consent, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-16
Updated: 2016-08-16
Packaged: 2018-08-09 04:19:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7786501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/violentdarlings/pseuds/violentdarlings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An encounter between Tessa and Brother Zachariah, after Will's death. Set approximately in the fifties.</p>
            </blockquote>





	when it's almost too much for my soul alone

**Author's Note:**

> Title from 'Hurts Like Hell' by Fleurie.

The summons comes around midnight. An associate of the London Institute has been attacked by a demon and requires urgent attention from the Brotherhood. Brother Zachariah would have usually not been the first Brother thought of for a mission to London, for obvious reasons, even with all the years that have passed.  But the outbreak of unicorn fever has now struck almost all of the children in Alicante, and while not usually fatal, the ailment can be both severe and excruciating, and the Brothers are sworn to alleviate suffering.

Brother Zachariah sets forth from the City with his bag and his cowl hanging well over his face. London in the night is still a lively time, and the sight of a tall man in bone coloured robes with scars on his cheeks and eyes always closed is one that would indeed brook remark. Even with a glamour in place, there will always be mundanes with a touch of the Sight, and Brother Zachariah has learned well enough by now not to trust to fate.

He lays his hand on the door of the Institute, but he does not need to think the words before the heavy wood swings open. There is a lad standing in the doorway, the hall witchlights glinting on his hair, for all the world looking like a halo. His face is anxious, but at the sight of Brother Zachariah, his weary face lights up. Brother Zachariah is not so far from being human, to not remember relief.

“Thank the Angel,” says the boy; this is one Brother Zachariah does not know, neither one of Will and Tessa’s many kin nor a child he has overseen the rituals for. Blonde, dark eyes, the boy cannot be more than fourteen, and the runes on his skin look fresh. The boy sets forward as if to take the Brother’s arm, but evidently thinks better of it. “I didn’t think anyone would come.”

 _Where is the patient?_ Brother Zachariah asks, in lieu of the niceties; it is not part of being a Brother, to idly exchange pleasantries while there is a soul in need. Or, indeed, to exchange idle pleasantries at all. _Please take me to them._

“Of course, Brother,” the boy says, hastening down the hall and towards the living quarters. Brother Zachariah follows behind him, as silent as the halls of the City that is not his home, although it is where he inhabits. ‘Lives’ is too active a term, for what goes on within the Silent City.

The young man stops before one of the rooms that, in Brother Zachariah’s other life, were used for guests the Institute did not entirely trust. It has a heavy bolt to lock the door from the outside. _Why is the patient not in the infirmary?_ Brother Zachariah asks, and the boy looks stricken.

“She wouldn’t go, sir. She came here and told me to lock her in, and to send for you. That was before, when she was… conscious.”

Brother Zachariah makes no comment as the door is unlocked and opened. The room stinks of demon venom and fear sweat, but there is enough light to see by, to illuminate a body in the shredded remains of gear. Brother Zachariah steps inside and sees more; a familiar dark, tousled head of hair and grey eyes shadowed by torment.

**_He is seventeen again, Will only an arm’s length away, Tessa coming down the stairs in a blue dress, her hand outstretched and his heart thumping a thousand beats a minute just at the sight of her, so lovely for a moment he cannot speak –_ **

He cannot speak.

Brother Zachariah turns his head from the sight of her, his fingernails biting painful crescents into his palms, and walks towards Tessa under the pretext of examining the bloody bite marks on her outstretched forearm. It makes sense, now. Tessa has never liked the infirmary. Her arm is marked by a ring of triple teeth, the skin almost scarlet and burning with heat around the site of the wound, small lines of poison infiltrating the tissues and beginning to make their way up Tessa’s arm.

He has seen this before, in his previous life. And he has studied the cure for it, as part of his training with the Brothers. It is not beyond his skill to heal.

 _Viridian toxin,_ he informs the boy standing by the door. _It is a poison of some complexity. Leave, and bar the door, and do not open it no matter what you may overhear. When the toxin begins to move through the body, it can cause violent hallucinations._

“Jem!” Tessa says as if she has heard him, and Brother Zachariah has to actively stop himself from looking in her direction. Rigid, he inclines his head at the boy, as if to question why he is still here. The boy is young enough to still be cowed by the Silent Brothers, and yet old enough, that he has been left here alone in the Institute while the other residents evidently stalk the streets of London in pursuit of the Viridian demon that has poisoned Tessa. He leaves, and Brother Zachariah hears the bar slam outside the door.

He is alone, with Tessa. Brother Zachariah has to force himself to step towards the prone body on the bed, quite aware she is insensate, that her cry of his previous name was not in recognition of what he is now. Yet some small part of him that he usually does not acknowledge is surprised she had called for James Carstairs, rather than her husband. Her dead husband. The memory of Will’s death is one that still has the power to hurt.

Brother Zachariah drops to his knees beside the bed and takes Tessa’s undamaged wrist in his own, resting his fingers lightly over the artery beneath the skin. As expected, her pulse is fluttering under his fingers, thready and racing. Her skin burns, and abruptly he remembers what she had said, some months ago at their annual meeting: “I might be staying here in London for a while. The Institute here have requested my assistance.” And of course Tessa would help them. That is just who she is.

Brother Zachariah takes the necessary herbs from his bag, grinds them with the mortar and pestle, and stirs in a thick paste made from the sap of a certain holy tree in Peru. The resulting mess he slathers onto the wound and binds it with a bandage, woven with Marks in the weave. The moment the poultice is applied, Tessa breathes out heavily, an exhalation of pure relief. Brother Zachariah does not smile, because Silent Brothers do not smile, but he comes as close to it as is possible. He does not move from his place on the floor, although it would be acceptable to move to the chair and observe Tessa from afar. More than acceptable. That is what would be appropriate. But he does not.

Hours go by, and eventually Tessa begins to stir. Brother Zachariah brings her a cup of water mixed with a little honey, and slowly, with wordless coaxing, he gets her to drink it all. Tessa is a mess, still in the remnants of her ruined gear, but her eyes are beginning to regain some of their former lucidity, when she finally opens them. When she sees him, her face lights up.

“Jem,” she says, with the honesty and openness of the delirious, “my beautiful boy, I knew you’d come. You belong with me.”

Brother Zachariah is not capable of letting his mouth hang open in unadulterated shock, but it seems to him the only reasonable response. Tessa has not spoken to him such since she wed Will, since the birth of their children. A lifetime ago, when he was someone else entirely.

It is not like her. But Brother Zachariah looks upon her easy smile, her languid posture, he recalls what else Viridian toxin can grant: a wild courage, a violent passion, and a compulsion to tell the truth. An aphrodisiac blended with a truth serum and the reckless potency of undiluted gin.

Is this what Tessa has been hiding behind her guarded exterior all of these years? All the meetings at the bridge where she is so careful not to touch him, to not let herself within arm’s reach. Brother Zachariah has always assumed it is because he is no longer James Carstairs; at least, not Jem Carstairs as Tessa had loved him. That she has no desire to feel the hands of Brother Zachariah on her skin.

 _Tessa?_ he asks, cautious. _It is Brother Zachariah, of the Silent Brotherhood. I have come to heal you._ But he knows it is futile. Tessa, much like Will, has never called him by his official name. Only Jem, or James. And it is only in Tessa’s presence, now that Will is gone, that Brother Zachariah feels even a hint like the boy he had once been.

“Jem,” she says, and she reaches out her hands to him. “I need you to touch me. I feel like my skin is on fire.” She would never have been so blunt with him before. But Tessa has been a married woman. he is not the only one who is changed.

 _The effects of the toxin,_ he tells her, but knows it will be small comfort. _They will pass._

“Bloody demons,” Tessa mutters.

 _Indeed._ Tessa turns over in the bed, and Brother Zachariah notices with a pang her damaged gear. He should not have left her to lie in mangled rags, yet it is not appropriate, to undress a woman while she is sleeping. That is the James in him, the Victorian boy of days past. Were it anyone else, Brother Zachariah would not have hesitated to remove the tattered clothes of his patient.

“Please touch me,” she requests, her voice small, and is not in Brother Zachariah to refuse her. He lays his cool hands on her cheeks, and she nearly moans in relief. “More,” she orders him quietly, and he trails his hands over her own, over her forearms and her elbows and her shoulders and her face. It’s only when she takes his hand and roughly presses it to her breast that Brother Zachariah withdraws, the fine tremors running through his fingers, his heartstrings plucked by the low desperate noise she makes when he takes his hands away.

 _I cannot give you what you seek,_ he tells her, and, wracked with fever shivers, she curls into a ball, her arms wrapped tight around her torso.

“Then why are you here?” she asks. “Why has fate brought you to me, of all the Brothers that could have come? Jem, my Jem. You’ve come back to me.”

 _No, Tessa,_ he says, as gently as he knows how. _James Carstairs is not here with you now. It is only I._

For a long time she is quiet, the only sound to be heard the chattering of her teeth as she fights the fever ravaging through her body. “But I can hear you,” she says finally. “I can hear my Jem in your voice.” She reaches out blindly, and Brother Zachariah has put his hand in hers before he knows he has done so. Tessa’s grip is tight and scorching, and there is sweat gleaming on her forehead and matting into her hair.

“Jem,” she says, “please. I know you’re different now, and I don’t care. Put your hands on me.”

 _You will not want this when you are no longer affected by the venom. You are in no fit state to consent._ To his surprise, Tessa chokes out a weak laugh.

“Jem,” she says, “sometimes, when we meet at the bridge, this is all I can think about.” Brother Zachariah wavers. He must not. He cannot lay his hands on her like he might be someone Tessa could love, like he’s a _person_ , like he’s _real_.

 _It is not fitting, it is not right, for Silent Brothers to dally with Shadowhunters. It goes against every vow and oath we take_. Tessa manages to prop herself up on one elbow, and her eyes are intent.

“But I am not a Shadowhunter,” she reminds him. “And you swore a vow to me first, James Carstairs.”

 _Brother Zachariah,_ he reminds her automatically. It is not in him, to be offended that she continues to call him by the name that is no longer his. Nor does it occur to him to be hurt, that she does not truly desire him as he is now, only the shade of the past that he resembles.

It is not breaking his vows, to touch another person. It is part of his creed, to alleviate suffering, to bring peace to those in torment. It would be wrong, if he allowed her to touch him back. Worse than wrong, it would be a crime. But this.  If it is the only thing that will bring her comfort, to help her sleep…

 _You must never speak of this_ , Brother Zachariah says, as fiercely as is still possible for him to be _. Nor ask this of me again. We will go on as we always have._

Tessa does not speak, but he does not require her to. With infinite care he removes the shreds of her gear from her, all the way down to the plain shirt and trousers she’d worn underneath the black. He hesitates when he comes to her undergarments; there is a shadow of James Carstairs in the fact that he had, for a moment, expected chemise and drawers rather than the very modern underwear and brassiere. He does not know where he learned these words. Certainly no woman ever discusses her unmentionables in front of a Brother.

“Take them off, for God’s sake, Jem,” she says, and Brother Zachariah notices dimly that his hands are trembling, that he can feel his heart thumping hard against his ribs. Tessa always has this effect on him, only Tessa. For the rest of the world, he can be stone. But the heart that is Brother Zachariah’s also once resided in James Carstairs’ breast, and that heart had belonged irrevocably to Tessa Gray. Tessa Herondale.

_Tessa._

He drops the ragged garments to the floor and looks at her. Her hair is loose and streaming down, her eyes almost closed, and his hand is on her thigh. He does not remember putting it there, and experimentally he strokes the flesh under his fingers; it quivers.

“God, Jem,” she says, and she too is shaking, whether from fever or sickness or need, he does not know. Perhaps all three. “Don’t tease me.” Brother Zachariah shakes his head.

_I do not know what to do. You must show me._

So she takes his hand, guides it to the place where her pale skin turns to dark curls and soft wetness. She shows him what to touch, and how she likes it, and the heat of her, he cannot fathom how he can feel the scorch of her slickness, when the warmth of the sun leaves him cold.

Tessa cries out and starts to move faster, when she takes her own hand away and it is his alone toiling between her thighs. Brother Zachariah watches her with the dispassionate curiosity of a scientist at work. He remembers enough to know that in his mortal life, this event would have been one of extreme interest and excitement. Now, however, he is only faintly intrigued, the same way he would be at the occurrence of an eclipse or a falling star or the ground opening up and swallowing him whole.

Tessa is slick and wet on his fingers, her body clenching around him. He finds that the movements are rhythmic and predictable, once one has mastered the basics. More complicated is the application of his thumb to the little hard knot of flesh, but he manages it, and when he finds the right rhythm, Tessa exhales a long, sweet sigh.

“Jem,” she says thickly, “I’ve dreamed of this.”

 _Have you?_ he does not mean to ask. _Of what did you dream?_ Tessa shudders, and moves her hips fretfully against his hand.

“The music room. And that night. Your bed. You remember? You were playing –”

 _I remember_. And he does. Sometimes the memory will flash into his head unbidden, like being struck by lightning. It is all he can do, at these times, to not broadcast his thoughts.

“And when – during that terrible time in Whitechapel. The Ripper. You came for me. You held my hand.”

Brother Zachariah stills for a moment, and there is something disquieting in his chest that feels uncomfortably like surprise. _But that was not James Carstairs. That was I._

Tessa opens her eyes, and looks at him, and her gaze is surprisingly sharp. “It was you,” she says with some force. “It has always been you, James. Zachariah. My love. Please don’t stop.”

He sighs, but returns to his task. Tessa is tossing her head restlessly on the pillow, her hands are knotted in the sheets. “Yes,” she murmurs, and the movement of her hips speeds up, his fingers are soaked in her.

 _Now, Tessa,_ Brother Zachariah tells her, and scissors his fingers inside of her. It’s enough. Tessa’s body tenses, for one long moment seeming fit to bend in two, before she sinks back onto the bed, her chest heaving. Orgasm, his mind supplies clinically. Climax. When he was young it might have been called the agony of bliss, or la petite mort. When he was young, this would have been the most exciting occurrence of his life. How times change.

Brother Zachariah wipes his hand clean on a rag and studies her. Tessa’s eyelids are beginning to droop, her need and her injury having exhausted her. Brother Zachariah unbinds the bandage on her arm, wipes away the remainder of the paste. Where before the herbs were a soft green colour, now they are almost black, having drawn the poison from the wound.

“Is this something I will feel dreadful about, when I wake?” Tessa asks, her voice slowing, and Brother Zachariah tilts his head at her, touches her cheek for just a moment.

_Hardly. What with your injury and the poison, I very much doubt you will remember this at all._

She is already asleep. Brother Zachariah draws the sheets up over her, and raps sharply on the door to be admitted out.

It is not often he prefers the Silent City to the rest of the world, but this is one of those times. In the Silent City, he knows what is expected of him. There is no confusion in the City. There is only duty, and order, and calmness.

The Angel knows he could do with some calmness. Silent Brothers do not sleep, but later he will find a secluded corner, press his fingers to his face, inhale deeply even though he does not need to breathe.

He will walk the halls of the Silent City, nod to his brothers and carry out his scared duties, and carry the scent of her still on his hands.


End file.
